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[gate_expert]

Sam had spent the morning working. It had been a good, fairly productive morning, and she thought that she might actually be getting somewhere instead of the futile banging her head against a wall that she'd been doing for some time now. It felt good to be working with numbers and equations and theories after a year of forced absence from anything

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[has_2ls]

Jack had managed to coax the bookshelf into a cheesy romance novel called Talk Nerdy to Me and while he would have preferred the heroine not be a model and an engineering genius, he figured it wouldn't be too bad. Besides, Carter could have been a model. She did have the legs for it.

But at the sound of his beloved engineer expressing her frustration at the bookshelf, he looked up.

"You know, some of us are trying to see if mild-mannered Charlie can seduce fashion model slash engineer Eva. Just saying."

[gate_expert]

Sam gave him a look that was equal parts sigh and oh good grief. "I can't believe you're reading that," she said, as if she'd never read anything in that genre before. "The characters are complete stereotypes that promote unrealistic expectations of women in general and their relationships in particular."

[has_2ls]

"I'll have you know that Eva is both a fashion model and an accomplished engineer with a knack for alien technology," Jack said firmly. "Since I can't have less than clothed time with my own engineer with a knack for taking apart alien doodads, I'm improvising."

Still, he put his book down and looked at her.

"Want me to try?"

[gate_expert]

"Ha, no, that's okay," Sam said, shaking her head. She wasn't sure how the bookshelf operated, but she had a feeling if she let Jack within ten feet of it after that little comment it would go from offering up self-help and relationship books to giving up the swimsuit issues of Sports Illustrated.

[crazyspacegirl]

River always felt bad for people battling with the bookshelf. She'd been doing it herself for years, and it never got any less frustrating. She'd walked what felt like every inch of the island in an effort to get Zoe to sleep, and it almost seemed to be working, so she spoke quietly over the baby in her arms.

"I have some physics books at home. I always keep them when I find something useful, but you can borrow whatever you'd like," she offered.

[gate_expert]

Sam smiled and kept her voice quiet, seeing the drowsy baby in River's arms. the last time she'd seen them, mom and baby were a lot less calm, and Sam knew that almost-sleeping-babies were easier to set off than a line of claymores. "I might just have to take you up on that," she said. "It's not being very cooperative. How's the baby?"

[crazyspacegirl]

"'Not cooperative' is an understatement regarding that bookshelf, most of the time time. It can be really mean." Even now, she avoided looking at the titles. She didn't want to risk it giving her any more stories about horrible things that happened to babies and small children; she worried about that kind of thing enough on her own already.

"She's developing as expected." Privately, River thought her baby was exceeding expectations, but she didn't want to put any undue pressure on her. "She got a name since you met her last." River gave a soft laugh, because she knew it had taken her little family a bit longer than most people to settle on what to call their baby. "Zoe. After a friend from home, who isn't here anymore."

[gate_expert]

"Zoe's a beautiful name," said Sam. "And pretty names are even better when they mean something. Has your friend been gone long?" She still didn't quite understand the disappearing thing, and hated that she'd missed her chance to see Teal'c here--especially considering that when she'd seen him last, he was First Prime to Ba'al and not her dear friend.

[heatedrod]

Johnny was no real strange to people talking to inanimate objects-- the only difference was that living with Reed usually meant they all talked back.

He kinda missed H.E.R.B.I.E., come to think of it.

"How about some comics?" he said as he came up behind Samantha, giving the bookshelf a quick scan. "They've got to be better than self-help books and romance novels."

[gate_expert]

"Hey, give it your best shot," Sam said. "Can't do worse than what I've got so far, right?" Although comic books were more Jack's line of...no, she couldn't really see him reading anything at all, actually.

[heatedrod]

"Let's see what we've got, then." Stepping up to Sam's side with a smile, Johnny barely took his eyes off her as he slid his hand over the spines of a few books. When he stopped and slipped a few out, he gave the first cover an impressed look. "Superman, not bad. Can't go wrong with the man of steel."

[gate_expert]

"Definitely better than all these happy-crappy books," Sam agreed, vaguely amused by the way he was smiling at her and wondering if he realized she was probably old enough to be his mother. "So, question for you. What's up with this bookshelf? There's got to be some kind of explanation for all this."

[nostoppinglife]

"I dinnae think it's inclined t' be kind," Moira said wryly, who'd come over to take another stab at finding something decent to read. "It's a miracle we've nae all gone mad on romance novels and trashy magazines."

She settled her hands on the shelf, glancing at the array of titles before her, and shook her head. "I find it helps a bit if ye try nae t' think of what ye want."

[gate_expert]

Sam smiled wryly at the woman, whose accent reminded her of Carson Beckett. "Now, see, I've had pretty good luck with this thing up till now," she said. "It's given me pretty much whatever I've been looking for, but today it's being difficult. If something that isn't sentient can be difficult," she added.

Her opinions on what was and was not sentient here had blurred a little, considering.

[nostoppinglife]

Moira had found she was having trouble deciding just what was sentient and what was simply controlled by a sentient and unseen being these days. "Inanimate objects tend t' be the most stubborn of all," she joked. "An' aye, it has its good days, I suppose, same as anythin' else - an' then it has its romance novel days. Or... self-help, judgin' by the look of this."

[gate_expert]

"Yeah, I don't know what's with all the feel-good stuff," Sam mused, frowning a little at the books. "I'd think it was some kind of statement, except I'm feeling pretty good." She shrugged and offered a hand. "Colonel Samantha Carter, US Air Force. Most people just call me Sam."

[fear_no_words]

"That bad?" Even though she could sympathize, Uhura couldn't help the small smile. Some times you had to laugh at the frustrations in life, or you'd never get out of bed in the mornings. "It's shameful how little reading I've done here, just to avoid this thing."

[gate_expert]

"It's self-help hell," Sam said with a groan, and turned away from the bookshelf to see who she was talking to.

Holy Hannah. It was Uhura. And unlike Jim Kirk, who didn't look at all like William Shatner, she actually looked like Uhura.

Thankfully Sam's long military career had taught her something about hiding crazy facial expressions, or she would have been blinking and stammering like an idiot--she hadn't been here long but she'd been here long enough to know that that was pretty rude around here. "So it's been pretty bad to you, too? So far it's been pretty good to me, but not today."

[fear_no_words]

Uhura winced sympathetically. "I hate that nonsense," she agreed with a shake of her head.

"It depends. Some days it behaves, and some days I think it doesn't have anything better to do than to try and get a rise out of me." She cast a wary glance over her shoulder at the jukebox. "Honestly, that thing's worse, but at least I like the music even if the message is heavy-handed."

[gate_expert]

"See, that's the thing," Sam blurted. "This whole magic bookshelf and creepy jukebox really shouldn't be possible. It's just... weird." She didn't have a good, solid, scientific adjective to describe it, so weird would have to do.